Alcohol is currently the world’s most frequently abused addictive substance. Alcohol dependency is the result of an increase in the production of dopamine, causing a persistence in desire. Ants are a good model of learning due to their ability to forage and become addicted to drugs. When addicted to drugs, dopamine levels, similarly to humans, increase. The purpose of this experiment is to see how foraging is affected once ants become addicted to ethanol. In this study, reward seeking was measured in Camponotus floridanus (n=40). Using a sucrose-fading procedure, followed by a two-dish choice test, addiction among ants was determined. These ants then utilized their foraging abilities to locate their feeding site when a maze was placed between the feeding and nesting site. Using Nodulus EthoVision XT, RT-PCR and immunostaining, behavior, locomotion and tyrosine hydroxylase expression was measured. This study established differing levels of dopamine production amongst groups of ants that received different concentrations of ethanol.
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